AND THE WINNER IS . . . Qatari soccer fans celebrate in the streets following the announcement that Qatar will host the 2022 Soccer World Cup.EPA

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Maybe it was too much to ask for a second World Cup in 28 years.

Maybe we shouldn’t have been so presumptuous to believe that simply having the strongest bid to host the 2022 World Cup would be enough for the United States to secure an event that could have empowered the sport of soccer in this country.

As soon as Sepp Blatter named Qatar as the winning bidder for 2022, the feeling was a devastating one for U.S. Soccer officials and fans. How could you not feel disheartened by the missed opportunity, the golden chance American soccer had to score a tide-turning boost?

Yesterday’s news was made even tougher to take when considering the day’s big winner, Qatar, was widely regarded as the shakiest and riskiest of all the bidding nations. As much as some wanted to make it a David vs. Goliath contest, it was more about one prepared country against one unprepared country that happened to come from a region FIFA was eager to embrace.

Whom should we blame? Did U.S. Soccer do everything it could?

By all accounts, the bid was the strongest of the five in contention. A FIFA-commissioned study even called the American bid the best, and Qatar’s the riskiest, but that mattered little when FIFA voters proceeded to give 2022 to Qatar in what was essentially a runaway.

Perhaps the most head-turning aspect of the losing U.S. bid was the fact that it managed just three votes in the first round of voting, one fewer than South Korea and the same amount as Japan. Qatar scored 11 votes in that first round, nearly taking the World Cup right there. The U.S. bid closed the gap in the final tally, losing 14-8 to Qatar, but it still wasn’t anywhere as close as most would have expected it to be.

That blowout makes you wonder just how the riskiest of all the bids became such a runaway choice. Was it a case of Qatar officials beating the Americans at the game of FIFA politics? If so, then U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati will have to shoulder his share of the blame for the American bid falling short.

Was it something more sinister, like the type of corruption and deal-making FIFA has been accused of for years?

Or was it something more noble, like FIFA really wanting to help establish the sport in the Middle East, a move in line with recent World Cups (South Korea/Japan in 2002 and South Africa in 2010)? Given FIFA’s reputation as a shady organization it is easy to look at yesterday’s winning bids, Russia and Qatar, and think that FIFA votes were bought and paid for.

The how and why don’t really matter much now. What matters for American soccer is recovering from the loss and continuing to build the sport. No, yesterday’s loss won’t kill soccer in America, but it did take away a perfect chance to strengthen a sport that has made tremendous progress over the past decade.

“It’s certainly an opportunity lost,” Gulati said. “Do I think we’re going to get to where we want to get eventually? I think the answer is yes. It’s going to take a little bit more work, so that part is disappointing.

“The World Cup’s a big event and today’s a big disappointment.”

United States vs. Qatar

Here’s a few things things you didn’t know about Qatar, the tiny Middle Eastern nation that was picked to host 2022 World Cup rather than the United States:

* Qatar’s population is 1.6 million — less than the population of Brooklyn (2.56 million) and Queens (2.3 million).

* Qatar earned its independence from the United Kingdom on Sept. 3, 1971. We declared our independence July 4, 1776.

* Our king is Elvis, in Qatar it’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani

* Our Mojave Desert (15,000 sq. miles) is bigger than their whole country (4,416 sq. miles), which is all desert.

* The weather is so hot in Qatar (the average June temperature is 106 degrees), its own players prefer to train in Europe. The U.S. is so cool, soccer’s biggest star (David Beckham) prefers to live here.

* Qatar’s soccer team, which has never qualified for the World Cup, is currently ranked 113th in the world. The U.S. is No. 24.